Jacks…

In this article – 1) replacing jack springs; 2) reworking jack pad foot; 3) Jack controller failure.

1: Replacing Jack Springs…

This picture happens to be of the RR jack, the one furthest from the hydraulic tank and solenoids and the one that I often have to ‘help’ with a 1″X2″X6′ stick. That story can be found here: Balky RR Jack…

Check out that the springs have no taper on the bottom and top. The manufacturer added a taper to the replacement jack springs a couple years after releasing the system, improving the strength and retraction speed of the the rams. This was mainly due to pressure from users dissing the slow rise time of the system right off the lot for a couple years after release of the product. The untapered type springs are not as strong as the tapered springs and so takes longer to retract the ram. My ’02 Journey originally came with the untapered springs.

Well, I knew I wanted to replace at least the rear springs (two per jack) and ordered them 8 months after buying the RV. Bought 2 sets of them off of eBay for around $70 US using p/n R3847, link here: Springs!

Kept them on hand until I got down here to San Felipe, Mexico and after asking around, had a volunteer to do the work. The manager of Campo San Felipe where I’m staying decided to install them for me, for a fee of course, but not much. Paid $124 which is a bit high here in Mexico but it did take ~5 hours spread over two days.

It was the first time he’d tried that job so I gave some hints, like he’d need 12 sticks of hardwood or plywood to wedge into the expanded spring loops. That extends the springs the 2″ or so needed to remove or replace them. One end hooks to the landing pad…the part that contacts the ground, and the other hooks to the RV frame. Old fashioned clothes clips used on clothes lines work well as spacers after separating them into two pieces. That was the extent of my expertise though. I did operate the jack system when they needed.

Here’s the only picture I took of the springs with the wood inserted between the loops. Most of the wood has already been removed. The wood is used to expand the springs so you can more easily remove (or install) them. I loaned the worker my portable vise since the springs are rather strong, and a vise is necessary so you can clamp the spring in place as you force it back and forth, inserting the wooden spacers in the coils as you go.

Anyway, after the old springs were removed, the workers took a full day off working on other important projects, and I wanted to lower the front jacks so I could extend the slides (I’d retracted them because they’re not suppose to be extended when the jacks are up). When I tried to do that, the rear rams, since the base plate had been removed, buried themselves into the dirt. Even though I’d pressed the right buttons on the control. Not sure what caused that, other than the lack of springs, but thought I’d mention it as a warning to readers. Eventually did get the front jacks extended so I was able to extend the slides so it worked out…but it was worrisome for a bit there, didn’t want anything ruined or a leak to show up. So far so good.

So I insisted the workers get back on the job, and helped by digging the dirt out from the ends of the jacks so they were exposed. They had to use a car jack to get them up while I pressed the retract button on the control, but once that was done and the rams were in the stored position, didn’t take long to get the new springs installed. With help from some heavy duty tools, like crow bars. I don’t know exactly what happened because I was operating the HWH jacks controller. And here’s how they look after they were all installed:

So I have 4 of the 8 springs replaced so far. On the two rear jacks. Back last September when I was ordering them, the eBay supplier only had four available so I haven’t ordered the fronts yet. I’ll get to them eventually, since the old style jack springs are known to break occasionally.

On Edit: March ’17

I did get the opportunity to test the new springs a couple days ago and both rear jacks came up as quickly as expected, but now the front jacks are slow as molasses. Usually they would be fully retracted before the rears were half way up. Probably has something to do with the hydraulics and having the new stronger springs in the rear. The left front did make it all the way up by itself eventually while I was struggling with the right front jack. There I was in the RV park’s driveway, the alarm beeping away, knowing I didn’t want to drive a couple hours with that damned noise, so I grabbed my piece of lumber and an object I could lever off of, tried to lever the right front jack back up into place.  It would not budge. Looking at the ram though, saw it was looking a little grungy. Proof that I should have cleaned them the day before I tried to travel. To get by that problem, extended that jack, then using the spray can of dry lube, sprayed the ram as best I could, while contending with the gusting winds. And that did the trick. The jack fully retracted with a little help from the lumber lever and off I went on a day trip. Since I’m down in Mexico, I’ll wait till I’m back in the US to order another set for the fronts. Might do the job myself, but it did not seem like an easy job, so might just wait until I travel back to Mexico next year to have them replaced. At least I know now that an occasional lubing of the jack shafts they’ll retract without too much trouble. Doubt I’ll have to lever them along again.

Edit: August ’17

I’ve ordered another set of springs after checking to make sure I was getting the right part number and my rig uses the R3847 front and rear so I’ve got the right ones. I’ll have them installed when I get back down to Mexico.

Edit: January ’18

Back down here in Mexico, and I had the front jacks installed by a con artist. He’s the guy that partially ripped me off a couple years ago and I’d forgotten his face. Drives a clunky old car and has a rusted out and practically empty tool box with a couple rusty hammers inside, and a rusty saw. I was getting worried I wouldn’t find anyone to do the springs for me on the front jacks because Israel the caretaker and worker friend wasn’t there at Campo SF any more. Damn. Anyway, this guy came by recommended by a local shop, told him what I wanted, and he quoted $125. Then when I pointed out that he was thinking of all four jacks not just the two fronts, I thought we had an understanding and it was only going to be $65 or so. He did the change over in 45 minutes, and than demanded $125. Not being a fighter anymore, but after a bunch of arguing, I caved and gave him the money. Still kicking myself over that. I paid about what I’d pay at an American shop for an hours work, but in Mexico it’s a rip off.

Anyway, the new stronger springs pull the jacks up really fast now. Takes less than 30 seconds and all four are up in the store position so I can drive away like a rabbit if need be. And no more grabbing my pry stick and having to mess around on the ground trying to get them retracted faster. Yeah!

---

2: Reworking Jack Pad Foot…

After 3 years of owning this rig, I often wonder if the repairs will give me a break for a year or two? Not likely.

This time, I parked at a RV park that had nice newer blacktop parking spaces. Don’t often see that where I travel. And I’d dropped the jacks to level out the rig as usual and a few days later, one of the neighbors pointed out that my drivers side rear jack was sinking into the blacktop. Sure enough, the jack pad with the SnapPad in place had poked a hole in the blacktop. There appeared to be a void under the blacktop when they surfaced it but didn’t use good enough filler.

So a neighbor who does RV repair work for people in the park came over to help get it extracted and after we got it out, found that the nipple on the bottom of the jack ram had broken off it’s bolt. To repair it, the entire jack assembly would have to be removed from the chassis. Or the entire ram assembly would have to be replaced…I don’t have any idea which. Not something I wanted to do. Or pay to have done. So the guy suggested he could just weld it back into place. Sure! Good idea! I think.

Anyway, I pay to fill his welding gas tank, he gets under there, sets the nipple back to where it was originally aligning it carefully to the broken off stud it was once attached to, and tack welds it in four places around the bottom of the jack ram.

And here’s some pictures of the work:

Note that the OEM landing pad (foot) is 8″ diameter and has a hole in the bottom that the pin on the metal part that goes into the bottom of the jack ram (the nipple part) goes into. That nipple piece had a broken bolt probably because of the stress of trying to hold up 6,000 lbs in a hole at a weird angle. Not sure how that bolt attached inside the ram and didn’t want to take it off the chassis to find out. In addition, I’d added an aftermarket SnapPad landing pad to the bottom of the OEM foot. It’s 10″ in diameter but still poked a hole in the blacktop, which is why I suspect there was a void there.

We decided on a 4 spot weld method in order not to overheat the bottom of the ram, perhaps causing distortion in the metal. After the work, it does retract all the way to the top and shuts off the light, plus there’s not been a leak so it seems to have worked out.

Here’s a before picture of one of the other jacks…

And here’s how it looks after the welding and the springs replace. Nice and solid.

I kept track of his time and all and paid him $127 for getting the jack out of the hole, welding the nipple back on, and reattaching the springs. Took 2.5 hours overall and that comes out to $51/hour. A bargain at half the price. Can you imaging having a RV shop do this? At $125 per hour? They would have likely want to replace the entire jack assembly. Over $2,000 I’m sure.

Anyway, I’ve since moved to another RV park and it seems to be working well. No issues and I’m happy with saving all that money.

3) Jack controller failure…16Nov21

Was staying overnight in Cuba, NM where the park I was at is right around 7,000 feet. I’d checked the weather the night before and it was supposed to get down to maybe 29F.

Woke up 5 AM checked the dash thermo and outside was 19 F! A full 10 F colder than forecast. Yikes. Waited until 9 AM to start the engine and got discombobulated when it came time to retract the jacks. I forgot the slides! I’d pressed ‘Store’, realized my mistake and quickly shut off the key. And then turned it back on, and retracted the slides. Both were pretty slow, but they made it. Tried to finish retracting the jacks and the touch pad wouldn’t come on. No lights. Grr. Went outside and finished breaking camp and hooking up the car and saw that the jacks were all right in the middle of their stroke. So I’d have to drive that way. I was careful to avoid any speed bumps of course and eventually made it to Truth or Consequences, NM, and then the next day on to Tucson where I’ve settled in.

I did grab the book and the test procedure pointed to the controller. In my model 310 series, the control pad doesn’t have fuses like in similar series HWH systems. In my system, fuses are accessible in the controller under the driver’s side of the dash. Checked all those  and they were fine. Checked the big 40 amp fuse under the living room slide where the HWH system is at the hydraulic manifold. The manifold is where the solenoids, tank, and pump are for both the jacks and the room slide hydraulics are and it was fine too. Checked the Freightliner fuse box under the hood. Didn’t see anything marked ‘Jacks’.

Pulled the controller, opened up the case and measured all the 20 or so diodes that are on the board and also measured the coils of all the relays. Did find that one diode was open circuit. That black device on the bottom left of the below picture. It’s a Schottky Barrier diode, 1N5821 rated 30 volt @ 3 amp. I have electronic parts stock and happen to have several 1N5822 diodes which are 40 volt @ 3 amp, same family so same functionality but with higher voltage rating. Replaced that and also the LM555 timer device because it didn’t measure to my liking.

Once that diode was replaced, the pad came to life and all is well. All the pad functions worked fine. It wasn’t fun being without jacks and I’m happy I was able to fix that simple failure. Electronic devices are much faster than fuses so it’s not all that surprising that the fuses were all good.

Happy to have found it since that controller isn’t available online. I probably could have contacted HWH and had it rebuilt but what fun is that?  Much more satisfying to have fixed it myself.